This project is the creation of the COllaborative National Network Examining Comparative effectiveness Trials or CoNNECT by combining two existing national networks devoted to studying primary care. The two networks are the
Collaborative Care Research Network (CCRN), a national network that seeks to advance effectiveness research on collaborative care, and DARTNet, which enables comparative effectiveness research by extracting and standardizing clinical data from multiple electronic health record systems across numerous institutions. This project demonstrated the capacity of CoNNECT to conduct comparative effectiveness research contrasting the effect of collaborative care models of mental health services delivery to regular care referral to out-of-practice specialty mental health and substance abuse services delivery. The focus
was patients with comorbid mental health and chronic medical conditions.

This study had the following aims:

To compare the proportion of identified patients with comorbid mental health and physical health diagnoses in practices implementing an integrated collaborative care model compared with practices using an out-of-practice referral to specialty mental health and substance abuse model. The primary outcome will be diagnoses.

To compare the extent to which patients in respective models are enrolled in effective interventions. The primary outcome will be rate of treatment initiation.

To describe the feasibility of such comparisons on a large scale. The primary outcome will be percentage of practices successfully generating EHR-based data to support the required analyses.